10 Upcoming Movies That Could Bomb At The Box Office
7. Bumblebee
Does anyone really give a sh*t about the Transformers franchise anymore?
Given that The Last Knight earned almost $500m less than its predecessor Age of Extinction, along with the recent news that the sixth installment has been removed from Paramount's release schedule altogether, the answer seems to be... no, not really.
That being said, now is the perfect time to rehabilitate a series that has finally escaped the decade-long tyrannical rule of Michael Bay, with Laika's Travis Knight (director of the Academy Award-nominated Kubo and the Two Strings) a potentially inspired choice of replacement.
Setting the movie in 1987 is a smart move that both capitalizes on the current cultural appetite for all things nostalgic, as well as ignoring everything previously established in the franchise to allow Knight to craft the story on his own terms and do his own thing.
However, with the Autobots and Decepticons taking a critical battering over the course of five movies, there is very little audience goodwill left towards a series that has been doing the same old sh*t for over a decade. The late-December release might give it some legs at the box office over the Christmas period, but this is the biggest test yet for the continued viability of Transformers as a bankable brand.